Preliminary plans call for 59 power poles and 16 transmission towers like this one. The majority of structures in Jurupa Valley will be power poles, said Dave Wright, general manager for Riverside Public Utilities..

A long-awaited showdown between the Riverside City Council and Jurupa Valley residents over Riverside’s plan to run high-voltage power lines through Jurupa Valley will have to wait.

A public hearing has been delayed because Riverside’s council cannot muster a quorum.

Riverside had set the meeting on the Riverside Transmission Reliability Project for Tuesday, Nov. 27, at 1 p.m. On Wednesday, Nov. 21, it was rescheduled to Dec. 18.

Jurupa Valley Councilman Verne Lauritzen said the postponement will not dampen residents’ desire to have their say before Riverside lawmakers.

“I think the delay will embolden people,” Lauritzen said. “This is a terrible project for our community and one that by all appearances is being forced on us.”

whearing.poll

Riverside spokeswoman Cindie Perry said Mayor Ron Loveridge and Councilman Steve Adams will be out of town on city business. Councilwoman Nancy Hart is on vacation and Councilmen Mike Gardner and Paul Davis have announced they will recuse themselves from the power line discussion and vote because of financial conflicts, Perry said.

Lauritzen said he wonders how much easier it will be for Riverside to assemble a quorum days before Christmas.

“This is highly disappointing,” he said.

Riverside and Southern California Edison want to build substations and transmission towers to add electrical capacity for customers of Edison and the city’s public utility.

map.transline

But the proposal to run the 230-kilovolt power lines through Jurupa Valley has infuriated residents who say they are concerned about the health impacts of electromagnetic fields that emanate from power lines.

OPPOSITION MOUNTS

Jurupa Valley’s city leaders say Riverside’s preferred route along the eastern corridor of Interstate 15 – one of the city’s most developable areas – will hamper efforts to lure high-end development to that section of the city.

The project was unveiled nearly six years ago. Jurupa Valley residents have spent that time gathering signatures on petitions and writing letters and emails to Riverside officials asking that they reconsider their plan to run the lines through Jurupa Valley.

Most government agencies in Jurupa Valley, including the City Council, the Jurupa Unified School District, the Jurupa Area Recreation and Park District and the Jurupa Community Services District, are on the record opposing the proposal.

Supervisor John Tavaglione, whose Second District includes Jurupa Valley, also says he opposes the project as currently configured.

After the planning commission recommended approval of the project, officials from both cities, including Loveridge and Jurupa Valley Mayor Laura Roughton, held meetings to seek a compromise. The effort proved unsuccessful.

Riverside officials are preparing for a long meeting on Dec. 18.

An earlier hearing at the city’s planning commission drew comments from about 50 people. Riverside Public Utilities General Manager David Wright said he expects about that number of speakers at the hearing with many more residents in the audience.

OUTREACH EFFORTS

A lot of groundwork has already been laid, Wright said. The public review period on the project’s environmental report was extended to four months, from the usual 30 days, and utilities staff members made presentations to Jurupa Valley and Eastvale officials, he said.

“We’ve done an exhaustive environmental process, including extra work in selected areas,” Wright said. “We’ve done a lot of outreach, especially with the people who let us know that they don’t like (the project).”

Though the project will mainly benefit Riverside electric customers, Wright said it also would provide an emergency resource for Jurupa Valley residents.

The new transmission lines will allow the city utility to send power to surrounding communities during a natural disaster, he said. Also, the hospitals, emergency centers and agencies that would directly help people during an emergency “are all in the city of Riverside,” Wright said.

Wright noted that Jurupa Valley’s power comes into the city on lines that cross many jurisdictions, because there’s no major generating plant within city limits.

“I do understand why somebody doesn’t want a transmission line in their city, but it’s part of how all of us live and how all of us work,” he said.

Wright said the project calls for 59 power poles and 16 transmission towers to be erected to carry the lines.

“The majority of structures in Jurupa Valley will be poles,” Wright said.

The poles that will run along the eastern Interstate 15 corridor are between 90 and 170 feet tall. The transmission towers are between 113 to 180 feet fall.

Jurupa Valley Councilman Brad Hancock said he emailed Riverside council members asking that they postpone their decision so that an alternate route along Jurupa Valley’s eastern border with Riverside can be studied.

“This is a fight we can’t afford to lose,” Hancock said.

Follow Sandra Stokley on Twitter: @SandraStokley or online at blog.pe.com/jurupa-valley

Follow Alicia Robinson on Twitter: @AliciaRobinson or online at blog.pe.com/riverside

PUBLIC HEARING

WHAT: The Riverside City Council has rescheduled its public hearing on the Riverside Transmission Reliability Project. It had been set for Tuesday, Nov. 27.

Alicia Robinson has been at The Press-Enterprise since 2007 and has covered Riverside and local government for most of that time, but she has also written about Norco, Corona, homeless issues, Alzheimer's disease, streetcars, butterflies, horses and chickens. She grew up in the Midwest but earned Southern California native status during many hours spent in traffic.Two big questions Alicia tries to answer with stories about government are: how is it supposed to work, and how is it working?

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.